One of you would have. You, not her. She does look pretty good but I can't believe how quickly people are turning their backs on the savior of NUFC!
Main focus of local press is on Staveley and who she represents. Apparently she was sat with Margaret Aspinall, a personal guest of Rafa's and Hillsborough campaigner, then went down the tunnel after the match. Seen a couple of comments about Liverpool being on the agenda again, but I can't see it; Liverpool are just not 'for sale' and it would cost probably £1bn or more to buy them, and for what reason? The benefits, more or less, are the same as owning NUFC, isn't it? Liverpool are a bigger club, no question or contest, but it's about where the money comes from and we're a very popular draw. Besides, the NUFC price is probs around £350m in total, but could be done in stages with Mike happy to divvy up the club to gain investment. Rafa has no real intention of going anywhere and it's interesting that he was manager of LFC when Staveley was trying to flog them to DIC (Dubai Investment) back in 2008. Just saying this might be the end game.
There's probably nothing in the fact that she was in the crowd, but would anyone really mourn the end of Ashley? Ten years, turmoil and relegations and under-investment at the heart of it. How long does he have to be here to prove he's not interested in moving Newcastle United forward?
Apparently a guest of Dalglish, but it's all just reports and guesswork. What we do seem to know is that the club's for sale, it's not cheap, but there are more people interested as per - presumably - the insane TV rights.
Skysports are reporting she's interested now. Realstically we have more money making potential than Liverpool because we're further below what our potential income and worldwide interest suggests. Add to this Mike Ashley slashing the wage bill and spending **** all in the summer, and you've got a pretty clean slate to start with. You've got a manager working miracles to stop a relegation. Spend 100m coming in in January and you're comfortably looking at top half of the table. It all suggests upward trajectory. Liverpool are (rightly) spending the budget of a CL team. Qualifying meets expectations, anything below doesn't. Can't see a team like that getting bought out for some time.
So she's a Liverpool fan and a guest of Dalglish fine, but surely if she were interested in Liverpool (and shes already tried, twice) she'd be invited to Anfield?
For a game? Next game there is 14th Oct and the last one was 16th Sept. And maybe she has been invited to Anfield. It's not worth getting excited about anything yet. Enquiring about the club and agreeing a price with Ashley to buy it are two very different things.
Don't think anyone would bemoan us getting shot of Ashley, was at the pub on Sunday with a few other NUFC fans and there was a mackem there supporting Liverpool but we got chatting about who's owners worse (was a stalemate) but I think even they wouldn't begrudge us getting shot of Ashley. If this chick (I'm sure she'd approve of the terminology) is the one who helped with the purchase of City and we got something similar I'm all for a takeover but if she had someone lined up in the Cellino (Leeds)/Venky (Blackburn)/Tan (Cardiff) mold I'd rather stick with so I'm going to sit on the fence for the moment. As others have said there's nowt concrete on the table atm although rumors have been going since summer and before but I'm not going to start getting excited until the Sheiks roll in to town waving cheque books.
It makes me laugh that in that interview with Sky, Mike Ashley stated that all his wealth is tied-up in Sports Direct shares. Claiming that he simply doesn't have millions of pounds lying around. If that were true, how did he buy Newcastle United in the first place? He had the money lying around, that's how! How much did he buy the club for? £250m He's full of Shiite
I think he had recently floated Sports Direct. He shouldn't be expected to put his own money in. It would be nice, yes, but he'd never see it again and people/the club would just want more and more so investment-wise it wouldn't make sense. There are probably other issues around taking money from one company to fund another, ie potentially paying dividend tax on it at 38.1% which I doubt he would be keen on.
